The History of 'Paste': From Print-Shop Glue to Xerox PARC's Gypsy Editor
bennash · x · 2026-09-06
A long-form history of the computing term "paste": it's a skeuomorph of physical publishing, not a coinage from dough or pasta.
- Etymology: English paste (via Old French, meaning dough) meant adhesive by 1400; the verb dates to the 1560s
- Print origins: paste-up artists physically cut galleys and glued them down; "cut and paste" was print jargon long before computers
- Into computing: In the mid-1970s, Larry Tesler and Tim Mott at Xerox PARC turned the paper workflow into modeless text commands in the Gypsy editor on the Xerox Alto; "copy and paste" likely originated there
- Popularization: Apple's Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984) spread it; Lisa first called the temp store the clipboard, and ⌘X/⌘C/⌘V shortcuts solidified there
- Tesler chose "paste" over "insert" to evoke the typesetting craft; 2000s slang copypasta is just a later blend, not the origin
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